Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:-
“The latest reported pressure tactic on Unionism to roll over and operate Stormont to implement the Union-dismantling Protocol, namely that Westminster will itself implement EU colonial rule on NI, must be as firmly rejected as previous attempts to subjugate the Union and Unionism.
“What such would amount to would be joint authority between HMG and the EU with the sovereignty bereft U.K. imposing on a supposed part of its territory foreign laws it didn’t make and can’t change. Even consideration of such is a telling insight into how beholden Sunak has become to the sovereignty-grabbing EU, quite apart from the inherent contempt for the very Acts of Union which created the United Kingdom of which he is Prime Minister.
“What it would do to devolution, if anyone was foolish enough to operate what is left, is emasculate the very purpose and reason for devolved powers, because it would see stripped out, across many departments, control over matters that were supposedly devolved. Agriculture, Environment , Economy, Finance and others would become zombie departments providing a veneer to EU rule. No self-respecting devolutionist could consider such a Vichy role.
“Such a course would change none of the objectionable fundamentals of the Protocol, namely, that Northern Ireland’s economy, trade, agriculture and environment must be ruled by foreign laws because we are annexed into the EU Single Market and Customs Code whereby NI is treated as EU territory and GB as a foreign country with a partitioning border down the Irish Sea.
“Thus a scheme to enforce such, whether within or over the heads of Stormont, can never be acceptable.
“Unionism should emphatically refuse any lot or part in such a contrivance to cement the dismantling of the Union.”